The June hog contract fell significantly during the opening of the session today but had bounced off the lows to settle at 104.975. The volume was around the same level that was traded on Friday, indicating to me that there will be some follow through going into tomorrow’s trade. I still believe there will be follow through selling for tomorrow’s session, but the market will try to stabilize and find the footing it had been looking for the past 10 sessions. The CME LH index was down from the previous session at 101.81 [from 102.34] but week over week it was up slightly from 101.25. The USDA estimated hog slaughter came in at 460,000 head on Friday and 40,000 for Saturday. Overall, this brought the total for last week to 2.403 million head which was down year over year at this point but up week over week.
June Live Cattle rose $2.50 today, a lot of the move being based off of a technical bounce due to an oversold market in my opinion. The volume for the June contract has been increasing the past 4 sessions and I would expect the next move in the market is to close the gap that had been created from 138.42 down to 135.42. The split in between the regional cash trades that have been reported are continuing to show as the Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa/Minn cash bids I saw were reported at 145-146, while the Texas/Oklahoma region I saw was around 140.
July Corn gapped lower in the overnight open and looked like it was ready to turn over but rather it showed some strength in the day session and closed slightly lower. It still remains in a trading rage of 780’0-820’0 and I suspect that it will continue to trade within this range unless there is a significant planting issue or other fundamental factor to move the market.